


Empty Spaces

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 18:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16203392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: After the battle, Harry searches for something he can't describe. Luna finds it for him.





	Empty Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> [Trope Bingo](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) square: road trips.

The forest is silent.

It’s surreal, the way Harry can just enter it with his wand in his pocket, with no care for any dangers that might lurk within. The Death Eaters had driven the creatures out of the forest by having the students practice unforgiveables on any animal unlucky to be caught. His ears catch no sounds, his eyes no movement. Harry stumbles past the clearing where he died only a few days before. He doesn’t stop.

It’s getting late, but he’s too tired to sleep. It feels like a pepper-up crash. A bone-deep exhaustion has settled into his bones, one he can’t seem to shake long enough to close his eyes. His mortal enemy is gone; the man who’d delivered upon Harry the worst moments of his life, the other half of Trelawney’s prophecy, the man whose soul Harry housed for sixteen years. Harry doesn’t grieve him, but he cannot bring himself to celebrate, either.

Harry’s life has finally turned right-side up. _This is the way it should be,_ he keeps telling himself, his heart pounding and his scar silent. This is Harry Potter without Lord Voldemort. In a just world, their fates never would’ve crossed in the first place.

And yet, Harry keeps walking through the forest. The trees grow taller and thicker the further he travels. Somewhere up ahead, a bird faintly chirps. Harry feels numb to the cold evening air and the stinging of his feet. _I_ _’m myself again. I’m Harry Potter._ He can no longer speak to snakes and the area around his scar feels different. What else is gone, changed? Take one soul, subtract a long-term parasite. Is it still the same soul? Harry has never been one for deep questions about the nature of humanity, but finding out you’ve been a horcrux changes you.

A rumbling sound begins to echo through the forest. Harry scrambles for his wand before his brain can register the fact that it isn’t the growl of an animal. It’s too cyclical, mechanical. Familiar. Harry keeps his wand raised, but his shoulders loosen when he sees the headlights through the trees. It’s a little late, but there it is, the Ford Anglia helping him out of a tough spot once again. Harry hadn’t been looking forward to walking all the way back to the castle.

Half of the car’s blue paint has peeled away, creating a patchwork of blues and yellows and greens on its surface. Some vines have managed to wedge through the windows, contentedly nestled into the body of the car. From the driver’s seat, a young woman with radish earrings smiles at him.

Harry huffs a short, strangled laugh. If there’s anyone who can tame the Ford Anglia, it’s Luna.

“Hop in!” Luna calls, reaching over to wedge open the passenger side door. Luna looks closer to the way she used to be before the war, but there’s still something brittle in her bright eyes. “We’re off to find a heliopath herd.”

Harry gets inside, but he doesn’t stay in the passenger’s seat. He climbs into the backseat instead. It’s surprisingly clean for a car that’s been roaming wild through the Forbidden Forest for six years. Harry curls up on the leather seats and rests his head on his arms. “We’re picking up the others, right?”

“Of course,” Luna says.

And that’s enough for him.

She holds the steering wheel like a horse rein. Harry nods off to the sound of her voice as she asks the car about its adventures in the forest. Harry must be asleep because he could’ve sworn it answered.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/).


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